How to connect a USB flash drive to your Android phone

Say you're going to a party and your friends have asked you to play amateur DJ. Your phone has some music on it, but there's so much more on your thumb drive or external solid state drive. You don't want to bring an entire laptop to the party! Why not hook it up to your phone?

Another scenario: you're going on a long road trip or flight and you can't imagine anything better than watching movies the whole time. Problem is, you can't fit them all on the internal or removable storage on your Android phone. Bring your flash drive! It's full of movies!

Connecting a USB flash storage device to your Android phone is cheap and easy. Let's find out what you need and, finally, how to get everything connected and safely disconnected again.

How to check if your phone supports USB On-The-Go

Not all Android phones support USB On-The-Go (OTG) functionality. If you don't have the correct guts in your phone you're not going to be hooking anything up with OTG. Luckily, to check if your phone is compatible requires just one app download.

The Google Play Store has a great app called OTG? that you can download now on your phone. It scans your phone automatically and will let you know if you're one of the lucky ones. If you are, keep reading.

What you'll need to connect USB flash storage to your Android phone

A USB OTG cable

Some Android phones, like the Galaxy S7, come with a USB OTG cable in the box — but most don't. If your Android phone didn't come with an OTG cable, you can pick them up off Amazon for super cheap.

This cable is what allows you to hook up your phone to your flash storage device. Without it you're pooched.

The one linked to here is made by Ugreen — it's $5, it has a one year warranty, and it works great. The cable is six inches long, so you'll be able to set your flash storage device and phone down any way you'd like. Can't really beat that.

A USB flash storage device

This one is largely up to you. Any storage with a USB connector will work as long as it's formatted as FAT32. If you want a ton of storage you'll probably want a solid state drive with a USB connector (but beware of the power draw — not all drives will work!). If you're OK with less storage, a thumb drive will do the trick.

If you don't already have an OTG cable or a USB flash storage device, you can purchase an all-in-one flash drive and OTG connector. The one pictured here, made by Patriot, has 128GB of storage, has USB and micro-USB male connectors, and only costs about $40. You can plug it into your computer, transfer files onto it, then plug it into your phone and stream media without the need for a separate OTG cable.

How to connect a USB flash drive to your Android phone

One of the best file managers that supports OTG in my opinion is Solid Explorer, it;s very powerful, tons of features, simple to use and will specifically tag the OTG card when you plug it in so it's easy to see what you're navigating to and from, copying to and from etc etc. I've tried MANY and solid explorer is the best for ease of use and the most features and especially support and ease of use for OTG connected memory cards and cables, adapters etc and they update VERY often to add new features etc.

The OTG app does not work properly. I have just tried it on my original Moto E and it says my device supports OTG. I have just plugged a micro USB thumb drive in but it doesn't work. I think the network provider may have disabled OTG support, Tesco mobile in the UK.

You might be right on the OTG. Not sure about OEMs disabling the facility though. There are many videos on YouTube during his to enable the cast function on Moto G early models. Why was that disabled as it is a fantastic function that I use more than OTG?

I bought a small OTG hub from Amazon for about £5. It has a few USB ports, SD card slot and micro SD card slot. The best thing is it can handle them all at the same time. I have had a keyboard, mouse and hard drive all connected at the same time whilst casting to my TV with Chromecast. If you need any further ports you can even plug in another USB multiport adapter.

My question : where does everyone get their movies from that can be put on a USB storage device these days? All I have is a few from Google play. I doubt I can put Google play movies on a storage device.

But still only plays in their app with no streaming capabilities like to Chromecast which sucks. You still have to use their app to play downloaded file no matter where they're stored but still nice to put on external...about time. Lol

I always carry a 2TB SSD with me and an OTG cable. I find myself not using it that often, but I always carry it, because in past experience the day I decide NOT to bring it is always the day it could've been useful.

Posted from my Galaxy Note 4 on SlimLP from the official Android Central app for Android.

I call BS.. no one needs a 2TB 750.00 drive they they "find myself not using it that often, but I always carry it, because in past experience the day I decide NOT to bring it is always the day it could've been useful"

unless you have money to piss away of course but I highly doubt this is a true statement, sorry bud...I call BS. You don't spend 750.00 for a 2TB best SSD drive there is to "sometimes" use it...lmao!

747.49 for a PRIME member..I call horseshit. Forgive me if I'm wrong, maybe you have moolah I do but still wouldn't spend that much on a SSD drive no matter the speed just to have available "occasionally" in case I want to watch movies from it. A 20GB MicroSD and OTG (if your phone doesn't have a MicroSD slot) is only 150.00 or so give or take and would suffice more than adaquately.https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-T3-Portable-SSD-MU-PT2T0B/dp/B01AVF6UHK/r...